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Authors Who Aren’t Writers
Odd title. Aren’t authors and writers synonymous? Or if I mean authors are published, then it should be the other way around with all authors being writers but not visa versa. But no, that’s not a typo. I’m going to dig into those “techno authors” like John Grisham and Robin Cook who produce thrillers adorned…
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New Year?
What’s the equivalent of humbug for a greeting of Happy New Year? Can the Grinch dress up with party hat and non-alcoholic bubbly to try to ruin the celebrations of New Year’s Eve? Or is it sufficient to see the bleary-eyed celebrants on January 1st trying to adjust to a day of football games and…
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Making it to the Next Round…
So, the eternal question facing all indie authors: how do you stand out from the mad crush of other books and attract readers without spending your life savings? Our first idea was to get professional assistance for the launch, push really hard, and try to catch a ground-swell of interest that would carry the book…
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The Lost Manuscript
I suspect most authors have one. The book you wrote, fell in love with, and then put it up on the shelf when it didn’t go anywhere, the ultimate distinction between literary and financial success in writing. You pull it down and dust it off from time to time, reading over the well-remembered chapters, smiling…
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Would Thomas Jefferson have dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima?
No, I’m not trying to reignite the old argument about the morality of using the bomb to end World War II. Rather, I’m trying to get deeper into an age-old debate in American foreign policy, Jeffersonian idealism vs the imperialism and realpolitik of Bismarck, Churchill, and Teddy Roosevelt. Jefferson believed that America was a new…
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Reflections on Retirement
It’s now some 20 months since retirement after 45 years with the same company, and I think this is just the right amount of distance – far enough into retirement but not too far from the memory of work – to offer some observations, albeit, rambling ones. From the start, I realized that I now…